


Castlevania: Refrain of Betrayal

by EclecticSorcerer, InconsistentBell



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Injury Recovery, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2019-10-29 21:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17815625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EclecticSorcerer/pseuds/EclecticSorcerer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/InconsistentBell/pseuds/InconsistentBell
Summary: With Dracula finally dead, the alliances made to overthrow him must move forward and decide what will become of their future. Sypha, Alucard, and Trevor set forth rebuilding on the shaky grounds of the human-vampire union, blissfully unaware of the storm brewing on the horizon. Meanwhile, Hector, used and abandoned, must find a way to break free from Carmilla's grasp and see to her demise. He can't do it alone however, so new alliances must form to defeat a common enemy once more.(Alternatively: We do not abandon suicidal friends and Hector finally gets to make his own choices)





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: mild descriptions of planning suicide (not how, just when), depressive thoughts

The fight was done. They were victorious. Dracula was… dead. That was odd for everyone to think about. Dracula. Dead? The two words didn’t sound right together. Trevor and Sypha were able to start to wrap their heads around the fact, but Alucard was having some trouble. It was understandable, since it had been his father, and he had been the one to deliver the final blow. Still, there were things to be done, and that helped. Treating wounds, creating a makeshift camp to spend the night, it was a welcome distraction from the ghosts lurking in the corners of Alucard’s vision.

A few days after the battle, he overheard Sypha and Trevor discussing what to do next, now that Dracula was gone. They had technically achieved their goal after all. Well, whatever they were planning, Alucard had his own loose ends to tie up. From the way they were talking, Alucard would be alone by the next morning. It seemed then would be a good a time as any.

“I want this to be my grave,” he said flatly, when Sypha asked if he was ready to leave. Going back to sleep under Gresit would serve no purpose, and with Dracula truly gone, Alucard had no one left. He would be shunned by any vampire for the rest of eternity, and the people of Wallachia would never accept him as one of their own, even as the antithesis of his father. This was the best alternative. The only alternative. How fitting it would be, the last of Dracula’s bloodline, slain by his own hand. A self-sacrifice for the good of the people, not a murder in cold blood. A circle come closed.

Surprisingly, it was Trevor who objected first, though Sypha had her mouth open to do so as well.

“No,” Trevor was saying, quickly rushing ahead as to not be cut off. “You say this is the collected knowledge of Dracula, spanning centuries. This castle isn’t moving anytime soon.” He shot a look at Sypha, who glared at him in return. “The Belmont hold just so happens to be a collection of knowledge made by your mother’s people.”

Alucard raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Just what are you getting at?” This was not going how he expected at all. He had hoped that goodbyes would be quick, easy, painless, so he could just be done with it. He was tired, and all he wanted to do was sleep forever. It seemed Belmont had other plans in mind.

Trevor stepped backwards, giving Alucard a mock bow. “I bequeath you the Belmont Estate,” he said, gesturing dramatically with one arm at the ruins of the house through a large hole in the castle wall. The gaping pit that once held the stairway down yawned at them from the ground, which would be almost menacing if the sun hadn’t just begun to rise.

Alucard’s chest tightened. He knew what Trevor was doing. Trying to save his life. Damned noble bastard. Still, it was an idea he hadn’t considered. A good idea. Maybe he had been sliding down a cliff. Maybe Trevor had offered him a rope he didn’t know he needed.

“Will you two be heading off then? To share an account with the Speakers?”

Sypha shook her head with a smile. “No, you big dummy. We can’t just leave you here to clean this up alone! And you’re really not going to condemn me to making fun of Treffy here all by myself now, are you?”

Trevor made a small choking noise, but it wasn’t to subdue a laugh. No, quite the opposite. Instead, he had gone rather pale in the face and his knees were almost visibly shaking. “On second thought the estate is still mine and I’m leaving you both here, goodbye, had fun, let’s never meet again,” he said hurriedly, and turned to leave, but Sypha grabbed him by the back of his collar, catching him off balance to the point of almost falling over. “Besides,” Sypha continued. “We weren’t going anywhere without you.”

So it wasn’t a rope Alucard was being given to climb alone. It was a hand to pull him up.

* * *

It had been a week since the three adventurers had made up their plan to rebuild the castle and Belmont archives, and while the work was a welcome distraction, Alucard found his resolve wearing thin. His mind often wandered as he worked, and his thoughts kept returning to the plan he had made for his own death. He hadn’t realized how much he truly wanted that, how little of it was actually as logical as he made it sound, how most of it was a result of his own despair. On the eighth day he broke down, quietly, in one of the library rooms by himself. He had been seeing visions of memories all around the castle since the second day, and when he had stood a portrait of his mother on the desk, he couldn’t take it anymore.

The room was still in great disarray, but it didn’t matter. There was an intact chair Alucard could pull to its feet and collapse into before his knees gave out. Visions from his childhood overwhelmed him. Playing chase with his mother, stopping in this room, with all the books he had never read before, only to burst into shrieks of giggles when he was caught and swung up into the air. Alucard didn’t notice the tears until one hit his hand, and then he was sobbing, desperately trying to muffle the sound so Trevor and Sypha couldn’t hear. His nails scratched at his face as he grabbed at his hair, and he had a fleeting thought that it was lucky he didn’t have permanent claws like other vampires. It almost made him laugh, the ridiculousness of that thought at a time like this, but his strangled chuckle only gave way to more sobs. He didn’t know how long he sat there crying. He didn’t particularly care either. A few hours of missed work was nothing in the long term. Besides, he would be doing most of the heavy lifting later. Might as well take the time he could now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Refrain as in the musical term, not refrain as in stopping from doing something  
> yeah the ending of season 2 was upsetting so we're fixing it because when did leaving suicidal friends to live alone forever become a good idea? gifting a library doesnt fix depression netflix, who made that decision. give me your info, i just wanna talk.  
> also hector deserves to not be treated like shit so we're fixing that too  
> \- ES


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some reflections on Hector's living situation under Carmilla's grasp. Or, Hector's escape

Hector should've seen it coming. He should have! He had hoped he could get away at some point earlier, but the truth was that as early as the holy water blessing he had no control over his situation. He knew Carmilla was using him. He had been aware that Dracula was using him too, but he guessed at the time it was all right. He had no problem with being a tool, as long as it was for a greater goal. 

That had stopped being true a while ago. He didn't know what Carmilla wanted, not really. He wasn't promised a fair world for his efforts, there was no deal made to guide him in his motivations. He was just given enough food and water to keep working day and night, to keep making monsters he couldn't care about. There were too many of them, for him to care about. 

The first thing Carmilla had done was figure out how to take his creations out of his control. It had been her idea to turn them against Dracula in the first place, and it would be logical for her to expect her own tricks to be used against her, Hector reasoned. It was a painful process, every time it had to be done separately and it felt like having a limb ripped from his body. It happened so many times he couldn't keep count anymore, though he tried, if only to get that information to someone who could use it to defeat her. He lost count around the first hundred anyways, and he wasn’t sure about time anymore so he couldn't measure his rhythm enough to calculate it. He couldn't see the sun in his cellar-workshop. He could barely see his own hands. 

He didn't even know what they were being used for anymore. Were they in battle already or was her army being kept a secret? Both seemed like logical choices, and he was going mad at all the questions in his head. Hector was a man of science, in theory. He guessed it made sense for questions, out of all the things about his captivity, to be the thing to drive him crazy.

But one time, he did make something different in his monotone cycle of a life. He didn't know much about the symbols on his hammer, or the ones on the rituals they used to separate him from his creations, but there was one that he always managed to see despite the darkness. It seemed to glow, almost, and it branded itself into his mind. So much so that in the dark, dark cellar with his hurt hands and desperate mind he managed to carve it into the monster in his hands. Right before the wings sprouted out of the corpse of an old woman he took his fingers to the flesh and drew it on the rotting muscles.

When the ritual inevitably happened he didn't feel the tearing on his soul. He didn't see anything different, but then again there never was much to see with. He felt like he had some power for the first time in ages.

He would have to be careful, but Hector’s mind had a new goal. He made a deal to himself, in place for the ones broken so long ago. He would escape, and bring down Carmilla. No creature able of such cruelty deserved to have their desires placed amongst those of the common people. 

And he managed it, several monsters later. He pulled his trick with the rune sporadically, just in case. No one seemed to notice anything, and soon enough he had a small crowd of beings under his command. 

His plan was relatively simple, but it had to be carried out before anyone could realise he was gone. He knew some of his creations were being used as guards, still led by a vampire general, and slowly, the monsters in the troop rotated and were replaced by the ones he branded. Soon enough the man bringing him food was surrounded only by enemies, and it wasn't hard to command them to stake him with a leg of his work table. Hector changed into the guard's armor and found his way to a door. He waited until the first colors in the sky appeared and snuck away on the first horse he could get his hands on.

Hector was shaking, but he was free. And he had until sundown to find a way to not get followed. He needed to find a witch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good day! It's time for y'all to meet the other half of the dynamic duo that has been writing this story.   
> I hope you'll like my parts just as much, even though they are Hector centric instead of about the main trio.  
> Leave some feedback if you have it! English is still my second language, so watch out for any of That  
> -IB


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alucard bottles things up, and Trevor and Sypha do something about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW - minor suicidal ideation, description of a breakdown, and mentions of alcoholism as a coping mechanism

Sypha and Trevor had been the ones to suggest cleaning and fixing the most accessible rooms first. Firstly because it allowed Alucard to have some time to himself to grieve alone if he needed, and it also gave Sypha and Trevor something to do instead of just waiting for the debris to be cleared.

“He didn’t have time to properly mourn his mother, you know,” Sypha said quietly to Trevor, early on in the planning. “And now his father on top of that.”

Trevor made a small, noncommittal noise. “His father, who wanted wipe out all humans,” he mumbled under his breath, and Sypha gave him a sharp look.

“Yes, Dracula was doing awful things, but he was still Alucard’s  _ father _ , Trevor. They seemed to have been close when he was young! That wouldn’t be easy to deal with. Especially since he-” Sypha was cut off by Alucard’s emergence on the stairs, and it had never been brought up again. Now here they were, days later, and they hadn’t even got through half of the rooms they had marked for fixing first.

“Y’know, a lot of this doesn’t really seem fixable,” Trevor grunted, balancing a box of broken glassware on his knee as he repositioned it in his arms, hefting it upwards for better grip.

“Would you rather go through the broken glass in your library? With all the acids that burned through the bookshelf?” Sypha asked without looking up from the book she was examining. Trevor didn’t answer. Sypha smiled to herself, barely glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, only to see a look of disgruntled resignation and vague disgust on his face.”That’s what I thought.”

The two worked in companionable silence for a while, stacking boxes by the door to be carried out later and sorting bookshelves, before Trevor broke the silence again.

“Tell me honestly, how do you think Alucard’s doing?” He asked softly. The two rarely saw him, except for meals and when they decided to rest for the night. Yes, they were purposely giving him space, but the constant distance was starting to grow unnerving.

“I don’t know,” Sypha answered. “I don’t want to leave him alone, but I’m not sure how I can help either. He volunteered to do those rooms by himself, and I don’t want to invade his privacy.”

“Maybe we should have started downstairs.” Trevor had tried telling himself for the past few days he wasn’t worried about Alucard. They had worked together, yes, and maybe they even considered each other friends. That didn’t change the fact that he ridiculed Trevor constantly, or insulted his family, or was generally annoying in every conceivable form. Still, the truth was undeniable. Trevor actually enjoyed Alucard’s presence. Enjoyed their banter. Actually cared about him. Actually worried about his well-being. If they had started work in the Belmont archives, it would have been easy to keep Alucard in sight. To make sure he was okay. Trevor had known what Alucard meant when he said he wanted the castle to be his grave. Trevor had thought it himself once, standing in the ruins of his old home when he was younger. The only reason he was still here was the drinking. It had numbed the despair, but he knew it hadn’t been a permanent solution. Alucard didn’t even have that. The thought left a sick feeling in the pit of Trevor’s stomach as he worked, and it wasn’t long before he took off down the hall, with the feeling that something dreadful had happened.

* * *

 

The days in Dracula’s castle had grown long as the three fell into a rhythm of work. However, Alucard’s breakdowns became more and more frequent. He had cried the first two times, but now he just froze in place, hands desperately grasping at the cloth of his shirt or his hair, trying to find something to cling to and ground him in his grief-stricken state. There were no more tears to fall. Only memories and a pain in his chest. It took all his willpower to resist the urge to end everything right there.

Three weeks after they had begun fixing up the castle, Sypha and Trevor managed to find him.

“Alucard!” Sypha’s concerned shout startled him upright. Alucard had been leaning his forehead against the frame a bookcase, hands clutching at the shelves and his own scalp, breathing heavily. His eyes were screwed shut, tense with nonexistent tears that couldn’t fall. This really needed to stop happening, but he refused to get Sypha and Trevor involved. This was his burden to bear, his thoughts to weather, yet somehow they had found him.

Alucard stared straight ahead as Sypha’s left hand found his shoulder and she rubbed his back soothingly with her right. Trevor stood a few paces behind, unsure of what to do for a moment, before coming forward and placing his hand on Alucard’s other shoulder. He wasn’t good at comfort or affection, but Alucard needed the grounding Trevor’s solid presence provided. Between the two of them, it took only a few minutes for Alucard’s tensed muscles to relax.

“I’m sorry,” he was able to say after a long silence. “I’m normally not like this.”

“It’s alright-” Sypha started, but Trevor, who had taken a few steps back now that Alucard had stopped digging his nails into his scalp, cut in before she could continue.

“We were uh... Concerned.” He spoke quickly, putting emphasis on the last word before rushing on. “You know, because we’re here to help you and you’re usually off galavanting where we can’t see you.”

“I’m not a child who needs to be watched,” Alucard bit back, but it lacked the passive-aggressive tone he often used to express disdain. Trevor took this as an invitation to continue.

“Right right, of course, but it’s also er.  _ Nice _ ... to know what you’re up to. Sticking together! Isn’t that our thing now?”

Sypha shot Trevor a flat look that told him he was trying too hard, before turning her attention back to Alucard.

“I think,” she said, sounding a little annoyed but trying to keep her words comforting, “that Trevor is trying to say he cares and wants you to be alright. And so do I. You don’t have to deal with this on your own.”

Alucard sensed a hovering tension in the air, something beyond the situation at hand. “You need me to lift something don’t you.”

Trevor snorted and started laughing, doubling over as Sypha groaned in frustration. “No, we _don’t_ ,” she called over her shoulder, leaving Alucard’s side to wave her hands in Trevor’s face and push him out of the room. “Not yet at least!” Trevor managed to wheeze before he was fully out the door, and Alucard could hear the beginning of good-natured bickering as Sypha half chased him down the hall. Alucard he shook his head in exasperation. At least they weren’t around to see the wry smile that crossed his face as he began to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yall remember when alucard saw a picture of his mom after trevor and sypha left and had a whole entire breakdown about it? that shit hurt to watch so ofc i kept it in because its not eclecticsorcerer without some hurt/comfort  
> -ES


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hector finds freedom, people, and armor bruises.

The horse was scared and so was Hector, but they managed to get far enough into the nearby woods that when he inevitably fell from the animal's back he actually allowed himself a few moments to catch his breath. Had the beast not just dropped him and fled, Hector would've tried to calm it down.

He looked up at the sky, the sunrise just barely reaching the patch of barbed grass he had fallen into. There wasn't much of it, and the hard dirt underneath him clanked against the uncomfortable metal armor he had borrowed, surely bruising his already battered body. Hector didn't really feel it now that he wasn't moving, but he should definitely take it off anyways.

He sat up to do so and oh, he definitely felt it then, some very specific places where the metal pushed into the bruises he'd acquired with the fall. Piece by piece he took off the hastily donned armor and looked at himself. He still had the fine clothes Dracula had outfitted him with, but they were in tatters, and covered in old blood that matted the fine fabric. He didn't dare look under those, too acquainted with the bodies of the dead to not find their signs all over his skin. He stood up as best he could with all the injuries, he needed to find a witch.

Armor in hand, he walked away from the castle through the brown and grey woods, and soon enough he spotted smoke in the sky. A town. His heart started beating like the gallop of the horse that had run away from him, and he hastened his pace. It had been so long since he'd spoken to regular townspeople. Would they help?

Would they know Carmilla kept a prisoner? Would they care? Would he have to lie to them? As he walked, he checked himself for the first time in years. What would people see in him? 

His hair was matted and longer, like it used to be when he was child. His sense of smell was seemingly ruined by the layer rot on his clothes and body. He wasn't at all charismatic, too many years of isolation followed by only people who distinctly didn't seem to care for him despite his efforts. God, Isaac. Was he safe? Had he managed to escape the fray? Hector couldn't know, but he hoped for the better. He didn't even know if Isaac liked him at all, but he was the closest thing to a friend Hector had ever managed. He wondered what Isaac would think of him if he saw him in this situation. Probably be disappointed in him for looking for humans as the first thing to do after escaping, but Hector couldn’t be sure. Isaac may hated humans, but Hector didn’t. Not really.

Hector was scared of them. He had been cast away before. Nothing guaranteed that wouldn’t happen again.

After walking long enough to make his feet hurt, Hector stepped inside the confines of the town. 

 

It wasn’t a huge town, only a dozen houses around a church and a small plaza in front of it. Hector thought for a moment, considering his options. For as much as he was willing to ask humanity for help, he didn’t dare step in a church. Too much history, even after Dracula had taken him in. So, if not the church, a shop might be a good place to ask for directions, right? There was a grocer’s near the plaza, which he cautiously approached. He gathered his thoughts.

“Hello,” His voice cracked unexpectedly. Oh, it had been a long time since he’d talked to someone. All right. “I wanted to ask where I could find-” 

“The smithy is two houses down, boy” The woman’s dry interruption dazed him. He must’ve been talking too slowly. Wait, why had she pointed him to the smithy?

Hector looked at her, trying to figure out what she meant. She pointed at his side, he was holding onto the silver armor. Oh. Well. That could work. 

He thought about a way to correct her but ended up just nodding and stiffly thanking her. She waved him away as he went where she pointed. It was a small smithy, but it was well kept, especially in comparison to the rest of the town. Hector pressed his fingers to one of the coins, trying to leave something in the texture. He wondered if he was cursed, at this point. 

He found the blacksmith without much trouble. It was a well maintained place, compared to the rest of the town, and it was lovingly decorated with strange, almost misshapen horseshoes. The intermittent clanging of metal against metal coming from the back comforted him somewhat, an odd familiarity, almost a sense that he was less lost here than anywhere else. He clung to that feeling as he awkwardly carried the armor to the front of the shop. There was no one manning the desk, so he waited what he seemed a reasonable amount of time and, with no shortage of doubts, he peeked out the door frame. 

There he saw a man and a boy. The man had broad shoulders and big arms, and he was showing the boy how to know when to hit the metal, from time to time handing him the hammer to try for himself. They shared the same black curls and the excitement for their trade, so Hector guessed they were family. The boy couldn't be older than twelve but he looked comfortable with the hammer when he got the chance to hold it, even though he wasn't as precise as his father. They seemed to be making a shovel, which Hector found vaguely fascinating. 

“Dad.” The boy stopped the clanging to alert his father of the new clientele, and Hector found himself an intruder in this strange scene.

“There was no one at the front,” he blurted out. “Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I can go back, but I need help to be done with something before sundown.” The boy was looking at him like a spider had found its way into his hair. 

After a heavy pause, the blacksmith moved toward him, pressing his hand into the boy's chest, pushing him back to put himself between him and Hector.

“What do you need from us?” The man's voice was rougher than Hector had expected. 

“Directions.” Hector held the armor like an offering. “Maybe a change of clothes? I need help more than anything.” He felt a chuckle leave him, but he wasn't sure where it came from. He left the armor on the work table, just in case.

The smith looked at him, really looked. It was disconcerting somehow, and Hector didn't know how to hold himself while being examined. He should've learned, said a passing thought, he had stayed so long with constant surveillance after all. He wondered if it was because he was being judged as a human being instead of as a potential meal or a tool to be used.

He realised early enough that he couldn't hold the man's gaze, so he had no choice but to look about. The boy had not moved from where his father had signaled but seemed annoyed, his judgement clearly having been made much faster than his father's.

“Can I go find him something to wear, at least? He smells like rot,” he said, stiffer than Hector expected. He looked at the man still inspecting him, asking for permission despite the firmness of his stance.

His father sighed and grumbled. “Sure,” he conceded, before suddenly grabbing at Hector's jaw and twisting it to see him better. “Grab some meat as well. Boy's too thin to be a threat,” he scoffed as he let go.

Hector frowned. He wasn't a boy. He was certainly older than the smith's son, in any case.

“Come on, we're having dinner soon anyways,” the blacksmith said. He pointed towards the door that connected the smithy to the home. 

After a moment, Hector realised the man wasn't walking in because he wanted him to go first.

Hector took a deep breath, and strode into the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's OCs but they're pretty minor! dw  
> Another Héctor ep! I'm pretty pleased with my plans, but they're starting Slow. Things will pick up! Stick around!  
> -IB


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sypha gets philosophical and has a bad time with it

The Belmont family hold had impressed Sypha beyond belief. The sheer amount of knowledge the family had gathered over their years in Wallachia was incredible, and there was obvious care put into the research that she could appreciate. Still, even with it’s wealth of knowledge collected over generations, it was nothing compared to Dracula’s library. Many times larger than the collection underneath the mansion ruins, it held a wide range of subjects, from science, to fables, to old literature. There were even books on different kinds of magic, which she had to have Trevor sort or she would end up reading for hours on end. It wasn’t long before her thoughts turned back to what she had said when she was looking for the spell to lock the castle in place.

Should her people have really written everything down? It had seemed so off hand when she first said it, but she knew there were reasons for her people’s traditions. Written things were easy to destroy, and if you were lax in remembering, that knowledge could disappear forever. Books were heavy and difficult to carry on the long trips Speakers often made. But that was just practicalities. What about the teachings of her people? Could she really abandon them? Reject the whole reason they began to memorize things? Leave behind the reason they were called Speakers to begin with?

God had smitten cooperation by tearing down the Tower of Babel. He had punished Eve for her pursuit of knowledge. Speakers were not about to let him do the same to them. Contrary to what the church believed, they were not agents of the devil, but protectors of basic human nature. Communication with each other, scholars in search of all there was to know. The things that made humans a people with soul. Speakers hid these things away for safekeeping, so they could not be stolen. Of course, the number of different tribes meant that the knowledge was never truly complete and together, but that too was in a mirror of humanity. It was not so easy to abandon all that for the sake of having a book.

Sypha must have been lost in thought for some time because she jumped and almost dropped the book she was holding when Alucard approached her and gently placed a hand on her arm.

“Are you alright?”

Surprisingly, his normal monotone had been softened, and was laced with gentle concern.

“Oh! Yes of course, sorry.” Sypha shook her head, trying to clear it, and quickly put the book in one of the many piles in front of her. She began working with extra vigor, making up for whatever time she had wasted, but Alucard seemed unconvinced. Still, he sensed that Sypha wasn’t going to say anything more, and hovered only a few moments before returning to his piles. 

Over the next few days Sypha found herself distracted more and more by her thoughts as she tried to sort the massive library into makeshift boxes made of broken tables and shelves. Alucard had kept sneaking worried glances at her since their first encounter, but after she continually insisted that she was fine, he left her mostly alone. Sypha was grateful for the peace. Her thoughts were no less muddled, but at least she had the space to think rather than being smothered by unnecessary concern.

Trevor, on the other hand, was nowhere near as thoughtful with his treatment. Sypha could tell he was wound up trying to deduce what she was so beside herself about, but rather than asking and listening to her wishes that he would let it go, Trevor instead turned to attempting to cheer her up by way of “witty” jokes, perfectly in line his brash sense of humor. While some of it was admittedly funny, Sypha kept reminding him that he had work to do, and it would be done much faster if they both focused on that instead of goofing off. However, she made no effort to restrain her laughs or smiles, to make sure he knew she wasn’t just being a stick in the mud. After the twelfth reprimand, he stuck his tongue out at her in response, drawing a quiet snicker from Alucard, which was not commented on, but definitely noted.

Still, jokes were only endearing for so long, and Trevor soon began to grate on Sypha’s nerves. Especially when he asked how many Speakers it would take to memorize a particularly thick series of books discussing a multitude of mathematical concepts.

“I don’t know!” Sypha finally snapped, days of pent up energy and frustration released in a burst of shouting, startling both Trevor and Alucard. She knew her anger was misdirected, but once she was going, she couldn’t seem to stop.

“Speakers don’t learn these kinds of things! Our knowledge is of stories! We know language and magic because they’re what make up pieces of history! We don’t just take books and eat the words to spit them back out whenever someone asks!”

All of Sypha’s insecurities and internal arguments spilled out in one long string of words that ran together until she didn’t even know what she was saying anymore. The conflict between practicality and tradition, the misunderstanding between the rest of the world and her people. The contempt she felt within herself and the fear that she wasn’t good enough, that she was too impulsive.

Books and words and thoughts and stories. None of it made sense either way, and no one could understand. No Speaker had ever seen such things that she had. No other person who had seen such things knew the life of a Speaker. She was alone in her experiences and had no one to seek guidance from. She was surrounded by friends and the knowledge of centuries and she had never felt more isolated.

Eventually, Sypha took a breath and found she couldn’t keep up with herself. She tried to say more, but all that came out was a strangled sob, before she crashed to her knees, face buried in her hands.

“It’s all so pointless,” she mumbled.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and opened her eyes to glance through her fingers and see Trevor kneeling in front of her. She quickly closed them again.

“Just go away,” she said. “I don’t need to hear your sorry attempts at comforting me.” 

When he pulled his hand away it was a quick motion of hurt, but Sypha didn’t care. It was just her and the palms her hands, giving her blissful darkness and a shield from the sight of the receding footsteps that echoed in her ears.

Silence fell over the room, thick and heavy, weighing down on Sypha’s shoulders.

“You can talk to us, you know. You told me that yourself. I suggest taking your own advice,” was all Alucard said, before he too, left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> id apologize for angst but its not going away for at least 3 more trio chapters so unfortunately youre stuck with it, but plot is slowly inching up too so keep watch for that  
> let me know if there was a warning needed that i shouldve put in the notes at the top  
> -ES


End file.
